The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 230: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CELL 203 he had to decide. With straining eyes he penetrated through the semi-obscurity which prevailed, and he thought he beheld sufficient to convince himself that the passage of the leaden pipe, however desperate the venture might be, was the course to be adopted. The courage of the Burker has been before spoken of, and as his circumstances were desperate, this natural courage on his part was now enhanced to a degree which rendered him almost reckless. His resolve was therefore speedily taken. Again he gathered up the old Jewish gabardine in such a way that it might not impede his progress, and then he entrusted himself to the slanting-pipe, in the same spirit of venturesome desperation with which a shipwrecked mariner clings to the plank which is the only barrier between himself and destruction. The reader will understand that this leaden pipe sloped up from the roof where the Burker had landed, to the roof of the higher house against which the former building abutted, and it thus ran diagonally, as it were, or obliquely, along the back of that loftier structure. We may add that there was just a sufficient interval between the pipe and the brickwork to allow the adventurous fugitive to obtain a firm grasp upon it; and now success depended upon two conditions, the first being whether he could main- tain his balance, and the second whether the pipe itself would be strong enough to support him. Firmly clutching the pipe with his hands, and cautiously using his lower limbs to sustain him in that perilous position, the Burker began crawling up the pipe, but there was a moment when his heart almost failed him as he looked down into the frightful abyss to which he would be hurled if his hands failed to retain their hold or if the pipe itself should give way. But sternly compressing his lips, and bracing himself up with all his courage, the Burker pursued his path of danger, suspended in mid-air, and looking like some colossal insect that was crawling up the back of the house. Several yards were accomplished, when one of the dreaded chances against him appeared about to receive a horrible realization, for the pipe began to bend. So mortal a terror seized upon the Burker, notwithstanding the daring nature of his disposition, and notwithstanding the reckless- ness of his character, that for an instant he felt his hands relaxing from the tightness of their grasp, but then the next CORNICLOO© cS (CO)